"What are we looking at?" Ruby asked as she stepped into the tower CIC. Ikora looked up with a grim expression on her face.
"Oryx," Ikora said, "the Hive God-King."
"I know who Oryx is, Ikora," Ruby snarked, before reaching the table, "So, what do we have? Pyrrha woke up something worse when she killed the Prince?"
"Looks like it," Ikora said, pulling up an image of a long, chitinous rectangle with a long trench gouged in it on the holographic projector in the center of the table, "They entered the Solar System last night, and made it to Saturn before the Reef's forces engaged them."
"How'd that go?"
"Badly. Mara Sov is confirmed to have died, and Uldren is presumed dead. But they managed to at least stop the ship in orbit around Saturn."
Ruby worked her jaw, thinking. Before she could say anything, a sharp alarm spread through the CIC, breaking her thoughts and drawing Zavala from where he was giving hurried orders to various waiting Ghosts. All three Vanguards looked as a map of the Last City popped up from the holographic projector. A red blip appeared outside of the walls, growing in size
"Get all non-essential personnel manning the walls to sector B7," Zavala ordered grimly, "Ruby, you stay here."
"We're about to be attacked!" Ruby said, the lightning crackling under her skin.
"They shouldn't be this close to the city already," Zavala said, "I don't trust that if they can get this close, they can't get into the City, and if that happens, you, on Bumblebee, are the fastest sparrow rider I have. I'm not asking you to stay because it's dangerous, I'm asking you to stay for the safety of people in the City.*
The Arcstrider paced, breathing in and out, "I don't like this, Zav."
"I know," Zavala said, "You trust me?"
"To the end," Ruby said, "otherwise I would have left before now. I'm calling in the Wolfpack."
"Call back anyone who isn't banished," Zavala said, "I'm doing the same."
"Ruby," Ruby turned to Blossom, who spoke in Penny's voice.
"Penny," the Mother of Wolves said.
"Pyrrha and I just got a request to deploy at Sector B7, we're on our way, but what's going on?"
"It's a long story, I'll tell you both when I get home," Ruby said, "Might be Hive, be careful."
"This close to the City?" Penny said with horror in her voice.
— X Pyrrha X—
Pyrrha turned on the emergency lights on her sparrow as Ruby's voice came out of Nick. It had taken her months to get the proper paperwork filed to let her add them to the sparrow because, well, most Guardians, even Titans, were irresponsible enough to abuse having them to get somewhere in the City faster.
Airships and cabs pulled away as she gunned the Sparrow at top speed, heading for the spot Victoria had marked. The choker around her neck glimmered with gold and purple engrams before they transformed into red and bronze plasteel armor, her Khvostov 7G-0X appearing on her back and a Roseworks forged shotgun at her waist. Behind her, she heard the whipping of air as the Warlock friend deployed her own armor
"We got sight on them," Ruby said, before saying, "What the heck? Ikora, are you seeing this? They look like shadows…"
"They're not," a familiar, detached voice said from Nick.
"Eris?" Ruby prompted, "You know what these are?"
"Toland spoke of them," Eris Morn said, "They are inhabited, exalted and rendered into their final shape. They are the shock troops of Oyrx, taken by him and rendered more real than they were…"
"...Ok, then," Ruby said after a moment of silence, "Taken then. Girls, be careful. If Oryx is willing to spend them on a face first assault on the City, I doubt they're particularly elite, but this is an unknown threat. How far out are you?"
"Seconds," Victoria said as they crested over the top of the walls, eyes landing on the black blister in reality pouring negative light and Darkness onto the ground, and out of the puddle were crawling jittering shadows in the shape of Hive, Fallen, Vex and Cabal. They stood up, hoisting weapons that were fused to their arms, and began firing at the already gathered Titans firing back, "Eyes up, Guardian."
Pyrrha threw herself off the sparrow, whipping the Khvostov off her back and zeroing an Acolyte's shadow within the first two seconds. Above her, she felt like a sun had blossomed, a slash of pure Solar fire flying from where Penny hovered, consuming four Thralls and scattering the Darkness that made them up.
Pyrrha landed, switching her Khvostov for the shotgun and blowing a Vandel away. Or she would have, if it didn't throw up a barrier like a Titan's Ward of Dawn to absorb the void powered shot and a swing of flames.
Well Pyrrha wasn't a champion of the Crucible because she was afraid to risk it all. She tore through the barrier, slam firing three shells into the Vandel and two Acolytes in as many seconds. Two Thralls charged her at once, only to be consumed by the fire from Penny.
Pyrrha ejected the last shell, beginning to reload when a warning cry came from the other Titans. The Knight that had crawled from the sludge was blown away in a storm of shot and shell.
Pyrrha watched it from where her head landed separately from her body, before everything went black. For a second, she was back at Beacon, a stabbing in her chest as she died her First Death.
She watched Ruby lunge at Cinder with a primal shrike of rage that reminded Pyrrha, every time she was forced to live through it, that Ruby was Yang's sister. Cinder nocked another arrow, before lodging the arrow in Ruby's throat and causing her to collapse gagging. Then a silver light exploded out of Ruby's eyes and-
Pyrrha caught her shotgun as Penny tossed it to her in between dueling a Captain with one flaming blade of Floating Array. The android Guardian deftly parried four hands worth of blades with one hand. Pyrrha, without hesitation, blew the head off the Captain.
The cyst in reality ruptured then, spilling out a deludge of darkness from which crawled a shadowy Ogre and Wizard.
—- X Penny X—
Penny drew the pistol off her hip as Floating Array MK 2 flashed that the enhanced mode was going to end before ejecting the energy clip. Seconds later, her Daybreak sputtered and failed as she ran out of energy to feed it. As she fell back, she watched a purple shield blossom into existence on Pyrrha's wrist, her other hand brushing the switch on the Khvostov's receiver as she spun in place. The shield, Penny calculated, would fly straight at the wizard.
Penny brought up the Traveler's Chosen, the mass produced, light sidearm designed for Guardians still had a heavier trigger pull than something designed for civilians. Not that civilians could easily get guns in the Last City, but occasionally you saw people come in from the wild too shell shocked by what they had seen in their exodus to what was once Chile to give up their guns. Otherwise, it was a clear sign you were a member of Ikora's hidden or the Future War Cult.
The survivors were more forgiven than the Cultists. The former had seen the horrors that existed beyond the Last Safe City, the latter obsessed with a war most didn't expect to come despite having grown up in the beating heart of safety. The city had been under siege for over a century, and it hadn't broken.
And it would not today.
Penny fell back to the Titan gun line as she thought about this, diving behind a deployed barrier as the Ogre sprayed blasts of energy at them. Slotting another powerpack into Floating Array, she popped up in time to see the Wizard swing it's arms up like a conductor, shadows, real shadows, not the fake shadows that made up the Wizard and Ogre, peeled off the ground in the form of Thralls and charged Pyrrha as she caught the shield. The Titan braced her gun on the shield and fired full auto at the charging shadow Thralls.
Penny rushed out of cover, firing at the horde before switching targets to the Ogre as it opened fire on them again. Dodging the shots as best as she could, the Warlock approached the Ogre from one cover to another. Finally exploding from the wall right under the Ogre, she drove Floating Array into its bulbous head and pulled the trigger, Solar flames igniting and tearing into the monster as it continued to try and fire, not even flinching until it finally exploded and died.
Falling and landing on her feet, Penny turned towards the Wizard just in time to see Pyrrha finish emptying a clip onto her, she exploded into shadow and anti light, leaving the Guardians to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Nick," Penny said, "call Ruby again, please?"
"You done then?" Ruby said.
"Yes," Penny sighed.
"Well, that's good news. Now I got bad news, Zav wants you up in the Tower as fast as possible for a debriefing. I can conduct it if you want, but someone's gotta grill you on what just happened. We're gonna go over everyone, so don't feel like we're picking on you, but you guys aren't on guard duty so we can afford to have you brought up first. Ok?"
"I suppose," Penny sighed. She didn't know how she would have survived in the Atlasian military, she hated debriefings. "We came, we saw, we shot it dead" was good enough for most of the time.
"Ok, good. Love you both, now get your butts up here so we can get this over with.
— X Weiss X—
"Guardian?" Weiss's eyes squeezed shut at the voice pulling her from sleep, "Guardian? Eyes up, Guardian…"
Weiss opened her eyes to see a litle robot floating in front of her, a single blue-white eye staring at her from the star-shaped shell, "What-?"
"Oh, good, you're awake," the robot said, the shell flying out from the eye and orbiting his body for a second before returning to the star-shaped form, "Come on, get up. We've got incoming."
"What are you?" Weiss asked, thinking back, last thing she remembered, she had been on a bullhead bound for Mantle, then… then nothing.
"I'm a Ghost… your Ghost," the little robot said, "and that's… important, we're important. You're what we call a Guardian, and that's… I don't have time to explain it. Come on, we need to find you a weapon before the Fallen find you."
Weiss reached for her hip, only to grab air where Myrtenaster should have been. Looking around wildly, her eyes finally landed on her beloved rapier… only to find it broken and rusted at her feet, "What- how long was I unconscious?"
"... Guardian, it's going to be hard to tell you this, but you weren't unconscious. You were dead, that's why you can't remember-"
"Can't remember what!?" Weiss snapped, turning to the Ghost.
"Anything? Try and think of your parents, you can't, right-?"
"Jacques and Willow Schnee," Weiss snapped again, "I remember things."
"That… that shouldn't be possible, I've never heard of- well, there were rumors that the Hunter Vanguard can remember her past life but… I always thought those were just rumors… No, it doesn't matter. You were dead, Guardian."
"My name is Weiss!" Weiss snapped out, grabbing the rusted form of Myrtenaster.
"Weiss, ok. They call me Mikael," Mikeal said, "You can name me something else later if you want, but we need to find you a gun. The Fallen will be here soon."
"What are the Fallen?" Weiss asked, looking around the building. They were in what appeared to be a broken apartment complex, no sign of the Bullhead, "Are they a type of Grimm?"
"Grimm?" Mikael asked, blossoming again and eye spinning in place, "What's a Grimm?"
"You… don't know what a Grimm is?" Weiss said.
"Were they something during the Golden Age?" Mikael asked, "you know that sword, was it something you fought during the Golden Age? I found a gun, follow me!"
Weiss Scooped up Myrtenaster, storing the rusted sword and following Mikael. Mikeal dived down into a courtyard outside the building. Sighing, and deciding she was in for a lien, Weiss slid over the guardrail and plummeted four stories before landing on a cold, hard piece of ground. Mikeal flew around a body that had decayed to bone, and some places, not even that.
"A Seventh Seraph carbine?" Mikeal said as Weiss knelt down at the bone hand. Muttering a quiet apology, Weiss pried the rifle from the dead body, "we got lucky! Seventh Seraph gear normally works even after all these years, even if it isn't as good as we wish. My supply of Glimmer is enough that I should be able to create plenty of ammo! Come on, let's try to find another gun before we head for where we look for a jumpship!"
—-